8 House is a 61,000 square meter bowtie-shaped mixed-use building of three different types of residential housing and 10,000 square meters of retail and offices which comprise Denmark’s largest private development ever undertaken. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), 8 House sits on the outer edge of Copenhagen as the southernmost outpost of Ørestad. 8 House stacks all ingredients of a lively urban neighborhood into horizontal layers of typologies connected by a continuous promenade and cycling path up to the 10th floor, creating a three-dimensional urban neighborhood where suburban life merges with the energy of a big city.

With spectacular views towards the Copenhagen Canal and over Kalvebod Fælled’s protected, open spaces, 8 House not only offers residences to people in all of life’s stages as well as office spaces to the city’s business and trade – it also serves as a house that allows people to bike all the way from the ground floor to the top, moving alongside townhouses with gardens winding through an urban perimeter block. Two 32 degree-sloping green roofs are strategically placed to reduce the urban heat island effect as well as provide the visual identity to the project and tying it back to the adjacent farmlands towards the south. Using pre-vegetated mats from Veg Tech AS, the build-up is about 4 cm, which includes an installed irrigation system. In addition, 100 individual semi-intensive, 1-square meter gardens with planters from ZinCo were planted on the terraces, installed by MALMOS. Originally, the entire roof was designed as a continuous green roof, yet due to the economic climate only the lower portions were greened. The shape of the building allows for daylighting and natural ventilation for all units. In addition, rainwater is collected and repurposed through a stormwater management system. 8 House is unique not only because it reduces the urban heat island effect with its cool courtyards, planted trees at entrances, container plantings on the balconies, and 18,300-square foot green roofs, but the living roofs visually connect back to its pre-construction site on the prairie fields, creating a true sense of spirit of place.

NOTES:Don’t miss our contributing editor Steven Cantor‘s new article, “Copenhagen Green Tour” where you can see more photos of 8 House! To see more photos, read my last Sky Gardens Blog post about 8 House here.

Occupying the 18th floor of an Art Deco building in a landmark district in New York’s Greenwich Village, this 2,500 square foot terrace wraps the four sides of a penthouse apartment whose living space it nearly doubles. As an integral part of the clients’ living space, the terrace brings the domestic program outside into distinct ‘rooms.’ With a simple palette of steel, reclaimed teak, and stone, the terrace creates an integrated environment that bridges between the two distinct scales of the domestic single-story penthouse and the massive, building-scale presence of the parapet elements built to be seen from 18 stories below. With Tinmouth Chang Architects as Project Lead, the project embraces the technical challenges of rooftop construction by integrating them into its design language, inventing a floating ground plane, which acts as ballast to cantilever the stainless steel railing, achieving stability without anchoring to building surfaces. The railing itself becomes a garden element, supporting planting, lighting, and surfaces which give depth to the parapet edge.

The existing 15-foot-high, 15-foot-wide ugly tan brick wall was the 1928 building’s chimney and since it couldn’t be removed, the design team transformed the eyesore into the centerpiece of their terrace garden with vertical plantings and a modular slate waterfall enclosing the far end of the garden. During the 26-month remodeling project, landscape architect Linda Pollak of Marpillero Pollak Architects, in collaboration with John Tinmouth and David Seiter of Future Green Studio, designed a greenwall from Green Living Technologies. In all, 600 plants of ornamental grasses and trailing species in shades of green, silver and purple were embedded into the 24 panels which were bracketed to the chimney. The greenwall panels were pre-grown three months before installation and the plants are watered by a drip irrigation system. The Private West Village, New York Penthouse Terrace forms a complex and layered middle ground which mediates views to the city beyond.

On track to become a LEED ND Platinum community, Hassalo on Eighth transformed an underdeveloped area – previously a vast parking lot – into a vibrant, eco-friendly, 24-hour residential development just minutes from downtown Portland. Designed by GBD Architects and encompassing four blocks with 657 sustainable luxury units in east Portland Oregon’s Lloyd Eco-District, the three buildings offer over 50,000 square feet of retail space, 1,200 below-grade parking stalls, and a Bike Hub with over 1,000 bike stalls. The integration of multiple green roofs covering over 38,000 square feet and the largest onsite urban wastewater treatment facility in North America were key components. A significant refund on system development charges was provided by the city as a result of the innovative water management design elements.

The state-of-the-art urban redevelopment encompasses three new multifamily housing buildings of varying density. Extensive greenroofs by Columbia Green Technologies cover 25,650 square feet planted with sedum tiles using their Extensive Layered System. Roof terraces on the Velomor and Aster Tower provide amenity space, with barbecues for entertaining on the Astor Tower greenroof. The project’s greenroofs reduce peak flows during large rain events by retaining stormwater, preventing stormwater flows from overwhelming the system. The entire development, along with an existing office tower, is connected to the decentralized treatment and reuse system N.O.R.M., short for Natural Organic Recycling Machine. Designed by Biohabitats in collaboration with GBD Architects, Glumac, and PLACE Studio, N.O.R.M. is a prominent feature in the main plaza. It treats and recycles 100% of the grey and black water onsite through a series of trickling filters and constructed wetlands, diverting approximately 47,000 gallons of wastewater from the municipal sewer system daily. Due to these cutting edge stormwater management strategies, the owner/developer American Assets Trust received a refund of the water and sewer fees totaling $1.48 million, almost half of the City’s three million dollar charge.

Created in 1939, the International Institute of Tropical Forestry is a research and technology transfer institute located in Puerto Rico, part of the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The IITF serves as a focal point for bringing external research and educational resources to bear on issues affecting tropical forests and grasslands and recently underwent a long restoration of its headquarters complex. With stormwater and urban heat island mitigation as goals, the new LEED-Gold Institute has 50,000 square feet of modern, state-of-the-art facilities that include a green, pervious parking lot; rainwater harvesting; retention ponds; and a green roof research station.

Architect Jeannette Rullán from RMA Architects, green roof consultant David L. Aponte from PRGD, and USDA engineer Juan Vissepó designed the green roofs as an experimental intervention that would further the understanding in hydrological, thermal, and ecological behavior and benefits in a sub-tropical scenario. Test green roofs were installed on four buildings and sub-divisioning resulted in 7 green roofs and 1 cool roof. A total of 22 species were used – around 16,000 plugs, with some seeds. Materials used include: Firestone 90 mil EPDM membrane; ZinCo green roof material; and Rooflite extensive growing media. Four cisterns collect 6,800 gallons of harvested stormwater, used for general cleaning and irrigation, including the green roofs when necessary. The monitoring scheme compiles the green roofs’ effectiveness regarding balances of energy, water, and nutrients with two Campbell weather stations to monitor air temperature, humidity, wind speed, impact energy, and rain. Sensors were placed on the ground surface, inside the volume of the soil, and the roof surface – on both cool and green roofs, for a total of 80 sensors. During the hottest times of the day, the green roof temperature is about 10° F cooler than ambient temperature. The differences in temperature between the green roof and ambient temperature mean less burden on the internal control of the temperature of the building and therefore result in energy savings on this iconic, historic building site.